


morning dew

by Anonymous



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Chapter 3: Clemens Point (Red Dead Redemption 2), Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Spoilers for the ending, post-Blessed Are the Peacemakers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23095570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dutch watches Arthur sleep. Arthur catches him in the act.They share a tender moment, weeks before the end.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Dutch van der Linde
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70
Collections: Anonymous





	morning dew

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [dinner & diatribes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513354) by Anonymous. 



> to think this was meant to be a fluff fic.

His sleep is restless. It always had been. He dreams of his father, an ever-present shadow in all of his nightmares. He’d started to dream of Colm, of being hanged upside down and butchered like an animal, bled out like a pig. 

More than once, he dreams of a buck basking in the sunlight. 

And just like it had been the past week, he always wakes up in pain radiating from the bullet wound in his shoulder. 

Arthur slowly opens his eyes, blinks a few times. 

He startles when he sees the figure sitting in the chair next to him. 

“Christ,” he curses, Dutch flinching and placing a hand on the gun in his holster by pure instinct, like he always did when someone sneaked up on him, or like this time, just surprised him. “Shit, Dutch, what are you doing here?” 

“I couldn’t sleep,” the other man says. 

“Well neither can I if I know you’re watching me.” 

Dutch ignores him. “How are you feeling?” 

Arthur almost laughs. "Like I’ve been shot, you know anythin’ about that?” 

He tries to move into a sitting position, but _damn,_ his shoulder hurts, he grits his teeth. Regrets moving at all when he sees Dutch’s heartbroken look. There is anger there too, that anger that always flared up when thinking about Colm. 

He wonders if that’s how it’s going to be from here on now, Dutch looking at him and only seeing his past mistakes. The first time he had been hurt during a job, Dutch hadn’t spoken to him in the whole week he was bedridden. Only Hosea visited him. 

  
He had cried back then, thinking that Dutch no longer wanted him, that he refused to see him due to disappointment. Sure, it was Dutch that acted on the wrong information, picked a fight with the wrong man but it was Arthur that wasn’t quick enough, managing to get stabbed in the gut before Hosea shot the man dead. 

He was so certain that Dutch was gonna leave him then. 

After that, he had learnt that Dutch just wasn’t good at dealing with failure, nor weakness. When Susan got so sick that they didn’t think she was going make it, he had gone into town and stayed there for a week while Hosea took care of her the best he could.   
That was the end of their relationship, at least one of the reasons. Arthur had still been young then, doesn’t remember the first years with them nearly as well as he wanted to. She had stayed though. 

  
Just like Arthur, she would stay until the end.   
  
He tries not to think of how the end suddenly seemed to get closer, how there was this sudden urge in him to say goodbye every time he left on yet another job. There are a lot of things he doesn’t want to think of. 

“I will make sure that they pay, son, I’ll promise you that. Every single man that hurt you.” 

“You think I would leave without puttin’ a bullet in every bastard there?” Arthur scoffs. 

“Colm got away.” 

“Yeah, and the law will catch up with him. We can’t go looking for revenge. You know that, Dutch.” 

Dutch looks away, fixes his gaze at the pictures next to his bed. For a while, all Arthur can hear is the gentle sound of the lake and the singing of birds. The camp is quiet today, and he’s grateful for that, the fever felt like someone was taking a drill to his head. Although judging by the soft light that reached into his tent, it had less to do with them being considerate and more to do that it was early morning. 

“I-” Dutch begins, but his voice breaks. “Every time I wake up, I’m scared that you’d died in your sleep. Every night I- I dream that you are gone, and feel the need to see that you are still here with me.” 

Arthur never was good at dealing with emotions. _And this was something new._ That Dutch even had come to him when he still was hurt was something he hadn’t experienced before. Not something he had expected at all, had thought he had a few days more until he had to deal with Dutch’s anger and pain. “Uhh, okay.” he tries, which seems to ease the tension a bit, Dutch letting out a bark that sounded both like a laugh and a sob. 

“Oh, here I am trying to open up and that is your response?” 

”What do you want me to say?” 

Dutch sighs, but a small smile is back on his face. He looks at Arthur with such fondness that it feels like his heart is about to burst out of his chest. 

He hadn’t seen much of this Dutch, this real Dutch, in a while, the stress of the past months taking a toll on him. But this is something he recognizes, he thinks, this is the Dutch he chose to follow for twenty years. 

“You should get some rest, son,” Dutch finally says. 

“You should too,” he responds. “You startin’ to look like your age.” 

“Are you saying that I look old?” 

“Nah, just tired,” Arthur carefully moves to the corner of the bed, hissing when accidentally strains his shoulder. “Lie down.” 

Dutch looks skeptical. “I ain’t sure there is enough room there for me,” he says. 

“You need to rest,” Arthur reminds him. “And you ain’t gonna get sleep if you need to get up all the time thinkin’ I’m dead.” 

It is with great reluctance that Dutch finally moves to lie down beside him. And he is right, the bed is hardly big enough for both of them, but they make it work. They always manage to make it work, even back then when they had considerably less to work with.   
When their relationship was still new, they managed to keep it from Hosea for months until he finally caught up with them. 

Arthur tries not to think of that too much, though, about Hosea’s anger and disappointment and how he for a moment thought Hosea was going to kill Dutch. He still disapproved of them, Arthur could see it on him every time he and Dutch got too comfortable in camp in each other's presence. 

It made their love feel inappropriate, like it was dirty just by it’s nature.   
  
He didn’t blame him, though, he never could blame Hosea. Hosea had always looked out for him, strict as he had been when he still was a child. In a way, he loved Hosea more than he ever could love Dutch. Or perhaps he just loved him different. 

Hosea was always more of a father to him than Dutch ever was. Dutch had always been something else, even those moments before whatever they had had started for real. But he really could understand Hosea’s complaints. He was barely twenty the first time Dutch had kissed him, young and still looked at Dutch like he was his savior, desperate for his approval. 

He hadn’t told Hosea about that. He had let Hosea think that he was the one that started it. The only one of his lies Hosea hadn’t managed to see through. 

“Colm still wants me to join him,” Arthur says, resting his head on Dutch’s shoulder. Thinks of the time when they still worked together, when their gang only was a trio. A time he once again hardly remembers. He had completely forgotten Colm’s brothers face, at least how it looked before it was blown open by Dutch’s gun.   
  
He had always been Colm’s favorite out of the three of them, even before Hosea conned them out of everything, before Dutch put a bullet in the man’s brother. Before anyone of them had given Colm a reason to hate. 

Dutch snorts. “I don’t want to think about Colm, son,” Dutch hands comes to rest on his waist. “I- I don’t want to think about anything. Not now.” 

“That’s good,” Arthur says, stifles a cough. “Bad things tend to happen when you think.” 

Dutch buries his face in Arthur’s hair, he can feel wetness against his scalp. “I won’t let you down again, never again.” 

Strange, how he almost believes him. 

_(Years later, Dutch dreams of wolves, of Arthur's smile, of his son dying alone. He catches himself halfway out of bed and remembers that there is no one left to check up on.)_

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it! if you liked it, please leave a comment. english isn't my first language so if you see something strange, please tell me. :) 
> 
> kinda a prequel to the linked fic, at least is connected to it


End file.
